Worth Reading On...

Aug 05, 1993

new internationalist
issue 246 - August 1993

World Class Business, A Guide to the 100 Most Powerful Global Corporations by Philip Matera, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1992. Breezy informative profiles of the major corporate players with fascinating histories as well as basic statistics and good bibliographies for further reading on each company.

Culture Inc. The Corporate Takeover of Public Expression by Herbert Schiller, Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1989. A compelling portrait of the growth and power of corporate ideology and the erosion of democratic space by big business. Schiller is especially good on the media and the corporate control of culture.

Global Reach by Richard Barnet and Ronald Muller, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1974. Now 20 years old, this smoothly-written classic is still highly entertaining, filled with prescient analysis and terrific quotes from power-brokers of the time. Look for Barnet’s new book (co-authored with John Cavanagh), Global Dreams, The New World of the Great Corporations (forthcoming, January 1994), an updated look at multinationals in the age of globalization.

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Multinational Monitor, PO Box 19405, Washington, DC. A consistent and rigorously critical magazine geared exclusively to monitoring and critiquing corporate activity around the world. Interviews, reports, reviews and good features on grass-roots opposition to corporate activities. Part of the indefatigable Ralph Nader’s public-interest empire.

Economic Justice Report, published by the Ecumenical Coalition for Economic Justice, 11 Madison Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. A cogent, though occasionally colourless newsletter put out by a church-based research group. Especially useful for those interested in the role of corporations in the emerging North American Free Trade area.

Transnational Information Exchange, Paulus Potterstraat 20, 1071 DA Amsterdam, Netherlands. This NGO research-and-action project works primarily on developing a strategy for labour in response to corporate manoeuvres. Their monthly newsletter features a range of international issues and they’ve also published extensively on the automobile and chocolate industries.

Dollars and Sense, OnefSummer St., Somerville, MA 02143,USA. A feisty little American magazine which attempts to make economics both readable and interesting, an unenviable task which it manages with aplomb most of the time.